In this video, Harvey Barnett, founder of Infant Swimming Resource, demonstrates the progression of teaching a child how to save herself in the pool.

He starts with getting the child to learn how to breathe in the water, then he shows her how to hold on to the wall.

“Next, you teach a child to float on the back,” Barnett says, noting you must teach good head orientation.

The difference between a child floating face down versus face up is a matter of life or death, he says.

He then takes the child further away from the wall and has her swim to it.

“This is a situation where, due to the density of water, it slows the process down a bit and she has an opportunity to see and practice how various other aspects of her movement or her lack of movement influence the environment that she’s in,” he says.

The sequence ends with the child turning over on her back while swimming toward the wall, then flipping over to grab hold of the wall.

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